UN General Assembly: 75th session of the UNGA to go virtual amid coronavirus pandemic

The 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly(UNGA 75) will begin from the third Tuesday of September i.e. 15 September 2020.

To mark the 75th anniversary, The UN will conduct a one-day-high -level meeting at the opening of the session. This special event will commence on 21 September 2020 followed by the first day of the high-level General Debate on 22 September, 2020.

The theme for the special event this year will be: 'The Future We Want, the UN We Need: Reaffirming our Collective Commitment to Multilateralism'.

The UNGA will also hold a Biodiversity Summit; a high-level meeting, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW), which took place in Beijing, China in September 1995.

In 75 years of UN General Assembly history, it will be the first time that world leaders would not gather at the General Assembly Hall at in New York for the annual session to mark the anniversary as the event will go virtual due to pandemic. Pre-recorded video statements will be submitted by the leaders across the world for the UN General Assembly.

The General Debate is conducted at the beginning of each session of the General assembly and usually runs for over a week addressed by different leaders and ministers from 193 UN members.

Meanwhile, member states are expected to submit their pre-recorded video statements for these meetings. Each country would be given a time limit of 15 minutes in the General Debate that would include introductory remarks of the pre-recorded video as well as the video itself.

“Each Member State, Observer State and the European Union can submit a pre-recorded statement. This will be of its Head of State, Vice-President, Crown Prince or Princess, Head of Government, Minister or Vice-Minister, which will be played in the General Assembly Hall during the general debate of the Assembly at its seventy-fifth session” the decision taken by the General Assembly read.

Arrangements for the telecommunication have been arranged at the U.N headquarters since mid-March after coronavirus spread surged across New York.

The decision taken by the General Assembly reflects sense of concern amid the current situation of coronavirus pandemic across world. The limitations suggested on meeting within the premises of UN aim to contain the spread of coronavirus infection.

The U.N. headquarters, which was closed in the wake of the pandemic, began its first phase of re-opening on July 20 with limited number of people allowed to enter the premises. In order to curb the spread, employees were assigned different days to work and physical distancing was made mandatory.